


Now Is Not The Time To Go Outside

by PastaBucket



Category: COVID-19 - Fandom, Junji Ito, World of Horror
Genre: COVID-19, Gen, Horror, Quarantine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:26:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23818402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastaBucket/pseuds/PastaBucket
Summary: Aiko has to defy quarantine and go outside.
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

"The TV says we’re out of time.  
Suck the fear in through your eyes.  
Everyone is bland and blind.  
Don’t go outside."  
\- Don't Go Outside, Poppy

Aiko turned around to take in one last look at her apartment. This was it.

She'd followed the instructions as close as she could. Every day at two o' clock, she had turned on the TV and listened to the instructions from her government. When the TV had told her to self-isolate, as part of a nation wide quarantine, she had done so. They hadn't told her for how long, so she had bought lots and lots of food. At the time she wondered if she had overdone it, stocking not only the fridge and the freeze to their brim, but also bought cans and dry food to store in every room. She had made careful lists of expiration dates, and consumed them in an orderly fashion.  
She had the internet to keep her company, and she found new ways to play and entertain herself when she got bored of even that.  
The trash stood in neat rows of garbage bags beside her next to the front door. She hadn't even gone outside to check the mail, so her letterbox must be full by now. ...but that couldn't be helped.  
Not even when someone had banged on her door and cried for help, did she open. Not for any noise that followed.

...but this was it. She'd held out for as long as she could. The food was all gone now, and now her little apartment could offer her nothing but starvation. She sighed with resigned determination and grasped both straps to her backpack firmly. It was time.

She looked around as she exited her building. Not a soul in sight. They had recieved the same broadcasts that she'd gotten. The desolation was filled with nothing but the sound of the wind. As she began to wander toward the store, she noted the absence of even distant traffic. Not even birds chirping in the spring trees. It was as if she'd stepped out of existence, and into a leftover stage set.

She was relieved when she spotted the first human sign of life: A woman sleeping on a park bench.  
Coming closer, though, she realized that she'd been mistaken. Her lips had been torn open, and her jaw pulled out of its socket. Her jacket was covered in blood.  
Aiko just stared at the dead woman in shock. Who could have done this? She hadn't brought a phone, but she told herself that she'd ask the next person she met. Now more than ever the empty, silent streets felt like a graveyard. ...but regardless, she needed food to live. There was no going back emptyhanded.

When she saw the large closed shutters covering the entrance to the store, she couldn't believe her eyes. They couldn't do this! If the store owners isolated, then where would people get their food from?  
She shaded her eyes and peeked in through the large windows. Inside there was nothing but empty darkness.  
No. Something moved in there. A shape she couldn't even begin to identify, zipped by between the gaps of the shelves, and then it, and the faint, weird sound it had made, was gone.  
Aiko stepped away from the glass. Was it maybe the distorted shadow of a guard dog?

Well, if the store wasn't open, maybe she could order pizza when she got home. It wasn't the end of the world, regardless of the corpse.

Aiko began making her way back when she noticed the woman standing there, at the other end of the street, staring at her, her jaw still dislocated all the way down to her neck. She had followed her here.


	2. Chapter 2

Having slammed shut and locked her front door, Aiko leaned her back against it as she heaved for air. She hadn't looked back since she'd begun to flee, but she was taking no chances, and there could be others. What had happened to the world? On TV they had said it was a pandemic, but that woman looked more than just sick. Had the public been lied to?

She got her phone from off the table, but then just stared at it in hesitation. She could call emergency services. She could call to order pizza. ...but at this point she could handle if either of them didn't pick up. She just sank down against the door instead, grabbing her head, trying to get a grasp of what to do.

Her tumbling thoughts were interrupted by a sound coming from behind her. In the dark hallway on the other side of the door, she heard the sound of slow, shuffling footsteps. She slowly and silently got up from the door as the footsteps continued to approach it. She covered her mouth with both hands, as the steps continued until they promptly stopped flush with it, just a meter from her. There was no doubt in her mind who it was, even though she had no idea how the woman could have known where she lived.

She almost let out a scream as she heard the mail slot open. She heard something shuffling about in there, and saw the bolted shut inner lid buckle slightly. Even if it had been in use, what would that nasty woman hope to accomplish by trying to reach through like that? ...but the worst part was that weird rattling sound. She'd heard it at the store.

Almost forgetting to draw breath, Aiko carefully backed away from the door, into the kitchen. The rattling had stopped now, and she heard the mail slot close, but there were no sounds of leaving footsteps. Aiko carefully picked up a used kitchen knife from the counter. She'd never stabbed anybody before, but she felt like she might have to in a short while. Only the door lock stood between them, and at this point she didn't trust anything.

She didn't know for how long she had stood there, tensing and anticipating, when the footsteps began again, this time slowly shuffling away the way they had come. She could finally allow herself to breathe normally again.


	3. Chapter 3

She had to. Grasping the door handle, Aiko repeated the phrase in her head, trying to convince herself. The phone lines weren't dead, but not even emergency numbers were responding. She was just about completely out of food at this point. Her other hand clasped the biggest knife she had. Having amounted enough courage, she swung open the door to the hallway outside. The hallway laid dark, empty and silent. before her. Slowly she moved forward. The light switch made it at least not so dark anymore. She didn't bother closing the front door behind her. She wasn't going far. Maybe she was just paranoid. It had been days. The woman was probably long gone by now.

Having reached her neighbor's door, she rang the bell and waited. She noticed the peephole in the door a moment later, and hid her knife along her leg so that he wouldn't get the wrong idea. Still nothing. She'd had quite a lot of supplies to stay isolated with. Had she somehow missed an evacuation order?

No, now she heard something. He was finally coming up to the door, apprehensively. There was a click from the door lock, but something about the door handle pressing down all too slowly, made her suddenly panic. As the door began to open, she shoved her full bodyweight against it. It didn't close. Whatever was behind it didn't yield, and continued to push. Aiko gave out a short scream as that awful rattling sound had now begun to emenate from the other side.

A moment later the sound had somehow moved out to the hallway as was hovering above her. Aiko looked up to see how a giant centipeded, black tentacle had pushed through the door crack, poised at her. She swung at it frenetically, and almost lost her grip as the blade cut into the thick stem of it. With that the neighbor-things pushing weakened, enough for her to mash the tentacle with the door, pinning it in place. She ducked just in time for the tentacle to miss her head, and retaliated with a mindless fury that lasted until the tentacle laid severed at her feet and the door was fully closed.

Her heart pounding in her chest she watched the centipede-like thing wriggle about on the floor. She raised a vengeful foot to stomp it out of its evil misery, when it suddenly zipped away with the speed of a fleeing housecat, up across the stairs to the floor above.

It was too fast to pursue even if she would have wanted to, and the shuffling on the other side of the door reminded her that she couldn't stand around there either. She quickly ran into her apartment, and shut and locked the door behind her. She took a deep breath before taking a look at the black substance coating the blade of her knife. This thing had bled something resembling a tar as black as itself. It didn't wash off easily.


	4. Chapter 4

Aiko lay on her bed staring at the ceiling, trying to line up the questions dancing around in her head into neat little rows:  
What had happened to them? How many of her neighbors were like that? Were they all like that? Where would she get food? Where could she go that was safe? The news said that the entire world was in quarantine now. Did that mean that nowhere was safe?  
Her thoughts were interrupted by a growing noise coming from the vents, where something rattling was crawling around. It was in the vents. How did it even get in there to begin with? How annoying. If it didn't get out of there, that disturbing sound would keep her up all night.  
Maybe if she had a crowbar, she could force the lock to the gate to the store. ...but the hardware store would probably be just as closed. She sighed. At least she still had running water and electricity.  
No. She couldn't just run back here every time she got scared. She had to look for food and more survivors somehow - even better survivors with food. She only had water and some dry food left by now.

She entered through the gates of the dark and abandoned supermarket. She could finally eat - eat it straight off the shelves, she didn't care. She carefully strode forward, carefully navigating the darkness, with the dim light from the windows as her only guide. She stepped over patches of dust bunnies on the floor. How long had this store been abandoned? Months? Years?  
Cookies. She picked up a package, and started to open it. The old plastic was sticky with dried fug, but she didn't care that it stuck to her greedy grip like glue. She moaned with delight as her teeth mashed the first cookie to pieces. Food would come later. The fug grime made even her soles stick to the floor. She gathered up a few more packages as she struggled a bit to get her shoe loose. In her hurry, she had forgotten to bring a basket. The other shoe was harder. What the hell? Just how long had it been since they mopped the floor here? She braced herself of the shelf, and found it to be as sticky as everything else. She grimaced as her fingers sunk through the dark, sticky coating. This was just too much. It was like glue. Why did it feel like the darkness was closing in on her? Even from the back of the shelf, the dark was unmistakenly pressing forward, flowing over her hand, coating it in a black, sticky resin to further cement her in place. All around her a rattling sound was building as the coating slowly crawled up her legs and arms. She could feel it in the very air now, wrapping her clothing, and every pore on her face. As she inhaled, she realized her mistake all too late. She bend over, coughing with all her might, but she couldn't get it out, and for every new inhale more and more seeped inside. Air. She needed air. She needed to get out. Her lungs ached as they desperately struggled to squeeze out the invading substance, but Aiko had begun to realize that air wasn't something that she'd ever experience again. She felt it crawl inside her nose and coat over her eyes, and wanted to scream, but she couldn't even press her lungs together to make a sound anymore, as the subtance settled inside her as its new host.


	5. Chapter 5

It was pressing against her face, suffocating her. She finally managed to fend away the edge flap of her blanket from her face, coughing out lint and taking the first gasps of fresh bedroom air. Her heart was pounding in her chest. That was not a pleasant dream, and for good reason. Hopefully going back to sleep didn't mean more of that. She also needed to pee. It took a while before she decided to throw the warm covers off and subject herself to the cold of her underheated apartment. It was dark, but light enough for her eyes to find her way with the aid of her memory.  
Releasing a steady steam into the bowl, she felt that she could finally relax. This was such bullshit. Where were her government? They were supposed to take care of their population, so where were they? If she just had a gun, everything would be different, so where had all the tax money went? Into covering it all up as a virus outbreak? Why would they do that?

She exited the bathroom when a faint noise caught her attention and made her freeze. It sounded like a slurping kind of sound. It was coming from the kitchen right next to her. As quietly as possible she took the two steps needed to reach the light switch. A second later she learned what a bad idea that had been. The light exploded into her eyeballs, and for precious seconds she struggled to force them back open again, as the slurping intruder intensified its sounds into an all too familiar rattle. Her eye sight adjusted just in time to spot a thin, black, segmented shape slinking back into the sink drain. Son of a bitch! She wasn't even safe in her own home anymore!

She swore to herself and started to get dressed. This was the final straw. If she had to cut someone, this was the last night she would spend in her own apartment. From the relative safe distance of her bathroom, she filled up a spare bottle of water from the bathtub tap. She held it up, inspecting it for any dark strains of pollution, but it seemed as safe to drink as it was ever going to get. She had nothing to really seal it with, so she would have to find somebody this very day. The glass bottle also doubled as something heavy to throw, if it would come to that. She'd already filled her backpack with the last package of bread. She clenched her teeth with determination. She would live!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been discontinued.  
> I just got bored with this.  
> Spoilers:  
> The next chapter would have been a desperate crazed Aiko running into the second protagonist during a fog, and he'd be nice and give her food, but he'd have no idea that anything strange was going on beside a normal pandemic, and they would have to figure out which of them was right - if Aiko was psychotic or not.  
> ...but as I said: Once I see how it ends, I just see no point in writing it down anymore, so I'm moving on.


End file.
